We have spent three years designing for hospitality brands. Restaurants, bars, event venues, hotel groups. Byron Burgers was one of the earliest projects that shaped how we think about restaurant branding, and we have carried those lessons into every hospitality project since.
Here is what we learned.
Restaurant Branding Is Not Just a Logo
When a restaurant owner says “we need branding,” they usually mean a logo. But branding in hospitality covers everything a customer sees, touches, and experiences before they even taste the food.
Menus. Signage. The website. Social media. The takeaway packaging. The booking confirmation email. Every one of these is a brand touchpoint, and every one needs to feel like it belongs to the same place.
With Byron, the brand had to work across a national chain with dozens of locations. Consistency mattered because a customer in Manchester needed to have the same brand experience as one in London. That discipline — making everything feel connected — applies just as much to a single-site independent restaurant.
Photography Makes or Breaks Restaurant Brands
No amount of good design can compensate for bad food photography. This is the one area where restaurants should never cut corners. A professional shoot of your dishes, your space, and your team will pay for itself many times over.
We have seen restaurants spend GBP 5,000 on branding and then use iPhone photos on their website. The branding looks polished, the photography looks amateur, and the whole thing falls apart. Budget for photography from the start.
Your Website Is Your Front Door
Most restaurant customers visit the website before they visit the restaurant. They are looking for the menu, location, opening hours, and a sense of what the experience will be like. If your website is slow, hard to navigate on mobile, or does not show the food, you are losing bookings.
The essentials for a restaurant website:
- Menu that is readable on a phone (not a PDF download)
- Location and hours visible without scrolling
- Booking integration that works in two taps
- Photography that makes people hungry
- Fast loading — people searching for restaurants are often on the move, on mobile data
Consistency Across Channels
A restaurant brand lives in more places than most business brands. It is on the physical signage, the menu, the website, Instagram, Deliveroo, Google Maps, TripAdvisor, and the booking platform. If the logo looks different on Deliveroo than it does on the front door, something has gone wrong.
Brand guidelines exist to prevent this. They do not need to be a 50-page document. A simple guide covering logo usage, colours, fonts, and photography style is enough for most restaurants to stay consistent.
What We Would Do Differently
If we were starting a restaurant branding project today, knowing what we know now:
- We would start with the menu design, not the logo. The menu is the single most important brand touchpoint in a restaurant.
- We would budget for two photo shoots: one at launch, one six months later when the menu has evolved.
- We would build the website for mobile first, desktop second. Over 70% of restaurant website traffic is mobile.
- We would design the takeaway packaging alongside the dine-in materials, not as an afterthought.
Working With Us
We work with restaurants, bars, and hospitality brands across the UK. Our All-In package delivers brand identity and website in 30 days for GBP 3,500. For hospitality-specific work, see our hospitality design page or get in touch to discuss your project.